To investigate ride behavior differences between casual and member users and uncover temporal and spatial patterns in ride activity, a comprehensive and well-structured database is essential. The analysis focuses on understanding how ride patterns vary across time—daily, weekly, and seasonally—and space—stations and routes—while identifying trends in ride duration, station popularity, and overall demand. These insights are critical for guiding Divvy’s operational decisions and marketing strategies.
The source data for this project consists of 12 monthly Divvy trip datasets for the year 2024, containing ride-level information such as ride identifiers, timestamps, start and end stations, and user type (casual vs. member). To efficiently support analysis, a relational database will be designed to:
By implementing this database, analysts will be able to efficiently query and aggregate data, uncover patterns in ride behavior, and generate actionable insights for Divvy’s operational planning and marketing initiatives.
# Read config
config <- read.ini("resources/db_config.ini")
db <- config$postgresql
# Safe database connection
tryCatch({
con <- dbConnect(
Postgres(),
host = db$host,
dbname = db$database,
user = db$user,
password = db$password,
port = as.integer(db$port)
)
}, error = function(e) {
stop("Database connection failed: ", e$message)
})
# Register connection for SQL chunks
knitr::opts_chunk$set(connection = con)# ---- Function to create single unified table ----------------------------
create_divvy_all_trips_table <- function(con, schema = "divvy", table = "all_trips") {
stopifnot(DBI::dbIsValid(con))
# Ensure schema exists
schema_sql <- sprintf("CREATE SCHEMA IF NOT EXISTS %s;",
as.character(DBI::dbQuoteIdentifier(con, schema)))
DBI::dbExecute(con, schema_sql)
# Build CREATE TABLE SQL
full_ident <- DBI::dbQuoteIdentifier(con, DBI::Id(schema = schema, table = table))
create_sql <- sprintf(
"CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS %s (
ride_id text PRIMARY KEY,
rideable_type text,
started_at timestamp without time zone,
ended_at timestamp without time zone,
start_station_name text,
start_station_id text,
end_station_name text,
end_station_id text,
start_lat double precision,
start_lng double precision,
end_lat double precision,
end_lng double precision,
member_casual text
);",
as.character(full_ident)
)
tryCatch({
DBI::dbExecute(con, create_sql)
message(sprintf("Ensured table %s.%s exists", schema, table))
}, error = function(e) {
message(sprintf("Error creating %s.%s: %s", schema, table, e$message))
})
invisible(TRUE)
}